A socio-political and cultural blog from the Republic of Ireland. The truth about the Celtic Tiger, it's demise and other related matters. Fír-eolas ar an Tíogar Cheiltigh, a thurnamh agus nithe gaolmhara eile.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

The 67th Anniversary of the defeat of Nazi
Germany in 1945 was marked asusual in Moscow with the traditional massive military parade,
repeated alsoin Petersburg and more than 70 other cities of the Russian Federation.

14,000 marching troops and a large collection of military

vehicles and equipment took part in the demonstration ending
with a fly-past of Russian Air Force
helicopters, transport aircraft
and combat fighters.

The order of the marching troops is as follows:

Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

Russian Ground
Forces

Russian Air
Force

Russian Navy

Russian Naval
Infantry

Russian
Airborne Troops

Strategic
Missile Troops

Russian
Aerospace Defence Forces

Border Guard of
the Federal Security Service

of the Russian
Federation

Internal Troops of
the Ministry of Internal Affairs

of the Russian Federation

Ministry of
Emergency Situations

Stirring music played by massed military bands of the Russian

Armed Forces added to the drama and atmosphere of the
occasion

in the Russian capital’s historic Red Square, outside the
walls of

the Kremlin, the centre of Russian Government since the
capital was

moved from Petersburg back to Moscow after the socialist
revolution

in 1917.

This year's combined military bands, conducted by

LtGEN Valery Khalilov in his 10th Victory Day appearance
as Senior
Director of Music of the Military Band Service of
the Armed Forces of the
RussianFederation, consists of
more
than 1100 bandsmen and for the first time in 3 years sees
the return of the
Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov

Moscow Military Music School's Corps of Drums
leading
the parade into Red Square in its dark blue and red dress uniform,
popularly known as the Army Cadets, as it has always done since
the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945.

Colonel General Valery Gerasimov is this year's
Parade Commander while the Minister of Defence of the
Russian Federation, Anatoly Serdyukov, is the parade
reviewing officer.

Watched by newly inaugurated President Vladimir Putin, Prime
Minister Dmitri Medvedev and invited guests, the display
included Russia’s latest
Intercontinental missiles and new

heavy mobile rocket launchers, tanks and mobile artillery.

President Putin made a brief speech promising
extended
democracy throughout Russia, clampdowns on
corruption and development of
international trade withEurope and China as the basis of his third term of the

Presidency of the
Russian Federation.

"Russia is consistent in its policy of strengtheningsecurity in the world. We have a great moral right intaking this principled and firm stand because it was ourcountry that took the brunt of the Nazi attack, met it withhistoric resistance, traversed immense hardship,determined the war's outcome, routed the enemy andliberated the world's peoples" - President Putin said.